Storms
by pharo
Summary: Sydney is tired of lying.


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Storms

Author: Pharo

Disclaimer: 'Alias' belongs to J.J. Abrams, Bad Robot, Touchstone, and ABC.

Summary: Sydney is tired of lying.

Spoilers: "The Coup".

Feedback: pharo@onebox.com

Author's Notes: I'm sick with a sore throat, so forgive me if this is not one of my better works.

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'you know the lies they always told you, and the love you never knew, what's the things they never showed you that swallow the light from the sun, inside your room…' ---Goo Goo Dolls, _Black Balloon_

Francie came back home a little while ago, soaked to the bone with rainwater and sorrow. Mother Nature chose tonight of all other 365 nights to be unkind. Not one of the many weathermen in the entire LA area saw the storm coming. 

I don't really know how you can miss a storm though. Such a dominant force---violent, destructive, altering everything to its wishes. Storms swoop in and disturb the given areas with their temperamental winds and tears of rain and snow. The eye of a storm flashes with hot, white anger that is almost as bright as the sun. How do you miss all that?

Easily, I guess. Francie didn't see her storm coming; I didn't see it for her either. I'm trained to notice that kind of stuff. It was probably a bad week. Maybe I'm just not good at my job anymore. Maybe, it's because I don't care about the world's problems anymore. I should write an 'anonymous' letter to SD-6 pleading with them to fire Sydney Bristow. 

I wonder if anyone wrote a letter to the National Weather Society to fire the LA weathermen. I wonder if they even had to. I can see it now. The weatherman has one bad day and he goes back to work to receive a pink slip and sympathetic looks from colleagues. Like that'll ever do him any good.

No one's sympathy does anyone any good. I feel sorry that the Charlie thing didn't work out for Francie. Doesn't really make the hurting stop less though. I really wanted him to be different than all the other ones. I wanted at least one of us to be happy. It can never be me, so who better than her?

"I'm sorry," she said after a minute's worth of observing me.

I nodded and offered her a small smile, but I don't think she noticed. She just plopped down on the couch that took us five hours to finally decide on buying and sighed. I looked at her, poured out another glass of wine, and we sat in front of our fireplace for an hour, saying nothing at all. We would've sat there longer if the 'wrong number' phone call hadn't occurred. 

"What?" I asked, agitated at the interruption of one of my very few contemplative moments.

"Uh…Joey's Pizza?"

"Fine, whatever. Wrong number."

I walked back to the couch and sat down to Francie.

"Hon, I have to go to the bank for a little while."

"It's raining," she said and surprised me with any type of response.

"I'll drive."

"Ok."

I started to walk away when she grabbed my arm and stopped me.

"Wait, Syd."

"Yeah," I said and turned around.

"You'd never lie to me right?"

And at that moment, my heart hurt so much that I had to fight not to stagger back to the wall and just slump. I looked at her and wanted to tell her the truth so badly. I wanted to ask her to sit down, give her a hug, and tell her that I unintentionally was the reason of my fiancée's murder. I wanted to tell her that it killed me everyday to lie to her face and have her be such a good friend---one that I didn't deserve. I wanted to unleash my soul on her, but instead, I just swallowed hard and smiled weakly while I told her one of the biggest lies yet.

"Never."

She looked so grateful and practically collapsed into me. I just felt worse. I wanted to run out of the house into the rain and just scream until my throat was sore and the world forgot me. Maybe, then I could stop lying. 

"I'll be back in half an hour," I said after I finally stopped hurting long enough to speak.

"Syd, thanks."

"That's what friends are for." Lying to. 

I finally arrived at the pier cold, dark, lonely, and hating all the lies. I looked around to find no one there yet. So, I just sat in my car and went over the realization that I'm a horrible person. Well, I knew that already, so it's more of going over the reinforcement the fact that I'm a horrible person. I lie and lie and lie---and that's just to my friends. Everyone else gets so many more lies that I wouldn't be shocked if no one really knew who I was. 

In all my thinking, I almost missed him standing there. He looked straight at me and I just motioned with my hands for him to get into the car. To hell with him if he didn't. I had nothing left to lose with them finding out or not. In fact, it'd be better that way. Maybe, they could stop the lies. Maybe, I'd get fired like the pink-slip weatherman. 

He took out his cell phone. A moment later, mine rang. I shook my head and let it ring before the caller---him---hung up. He shook his head, looked around once or twice, and then 'casually' got into the car---or as casual as getting into the car of a 'stranger' is.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked as soon as he got in.

I decided to write up a list tomorrow and give it to him. 

"If SD-6 is watching---"

"I'm not walking out into the rain," I said.

"Rain isn't going to stop them from killing us."

I looked straight into his green eyes that were filled with good intentions. They just made me sadder.

"Screw you," I said coldly.

"Is something wrong?"

"Why'd you call?" I didn't care that I was answering a question with a question. It made no difference to anyone that I was.

"Devlin, uh, wanted me to tell you that you did a nice job on the last mission."

"Is that it?" I asked.

"Um, yeah." He looked so confused that for a second, I felt bad, but I just shook it off. I wanted him to hate me as much as I hated myself at that moment.

"I thought it'd be more since you called me during a night like this."

"I'm sorry. I---were you doing anything?"

"Yes."

"Sorry," he said and opened the door to leave.

I wanted to stop him, but I couldn't. I just watched him as he walked out into the rain and jogged back to his car. He didn't look back or give signal for me to leave. He just looked ahead and started his engine.

I knew that if I let him drive off, I'd be lying to myself again. I didn't want him to hate me. I need him to _not_ hate me, so that I could go on. I could pretend to be the Sydney Bristow I had lost a couple of years ago.

"Vaughn!" I shouted into the wind from my open window. "Vaughn, wait!"

He didn't hear me. Maybe he didn't want to. I desperately searched for my phone and punched in the numbers to his. I watched him look at his phone, hold it up, and I silently pleaded for him to pick it up. I begged in my head for him not to be mad, not to hate me.

"Glad you're phone isn't broken," he said when answered his phone.

"Can we talk?"

"I was hoping you'd say that. I was kind of afraid you had lost my number."

"I've got it memorized. Where should I start?" I asked.

"Anywhere you want. I've got all night."

I realized that there was someone who saw my storms when I couldn't. Somebody I didn't have to lie to. Someone who actually knew me---the real me. 


End file.
